Regardless of where they are in their academic careers, Lipscomb students now have the option to not include a minor in graduation plans.
Lipscomb announced to students Friday, Sept. 20, that a minor would no longer be a requirement to graduate, but the 126-hour minimum is still in effect.
Dr. Randy Bouldin, the Associate Provost for Academic Development, said the process began about a year and a half ago when the academic leadership team looked at other schools for guidelines and decided what would be the best for students.
“We voted to do away with the minor requirement for graduation, but we had to decide how we were going to implement it,” Bouldin said. “There were several options we could have taken. We could have said this was only going to apply to incoming freshman next year, or implement it in the spring.”
Ultimately the decision was made to let the new criteria apply to every student.
“We have not eliminated the possibility of a minor,” Bouldin said. “But now a student has more options.”
The goal of this new system is to let students customize their course load to a greater extent. “You have the capacity now to use those hours in ways that might be better than if you had to choose an 18-hour minor,” Bouldin said.
This new “flexibility,” as Bouldin calls it, lets students do their own academic programming. He points out that an education is a huge investment and university leaders want students to get the most out it.
Bouldin said he’s not worried about students taking too many electives, becauses he has faith in their integrity. Also, “it’s the time for you to be able to learn more about things like that, but at the same time, you have to be realistic.”
Students should note that if they would like to drop their minor, there is a form specifically for this purpose in the registrars’ office that will need to be filled out by the student and signed by their advisor. There is no need to file a new major/minor form.
Bouldin says that this will definitely be a bit of a transition and there might be some culture shift, and if it seems to not be working, they will revisit the new plan.
Minors are officially not a requirement to be met upon graduation, and the idea of this decision is not to make course loads easier or harder, but to make academic programming more directed around the individual.
As to whether a student should drop a minor, Bouldin said it is more a matter of personal goals. “My advice to students would be, look at what you want out of the college experience, either professionally or personally,” he said.
“There are different dimensions of your curriculum. Sometimes it is for professional reasons, sometimes it’s for personal reasons,” Bouldin added.
“I think minors are very valuable, and if declaring one will help you professionally, that’s exactly what I want you to do. But I also think it would be valuable to customize your academic program that makes you distinctive from other people with whom you might be competing in the job market.”